Blue Ox 7-way to 6-way Coiled Electrical Cord - No Power on 12VDC Accessory Line

Question:

We bought a replacement Blue Ox 7-wire to 6-wire, coiled electrical cord BX88206 for our Blue Ox Avail Tow Bar. Our towing setup includes a 12 volt adapter inside our tow vehicle that provides power to the Patriot brake. When using the replacement cord we bought from eTrailer, we are not getting power to the 12 volt adapter. We get power when we use the old cord.. The lights work when we yse the new/replacement cord. We thought the new cord was a one-for-one replacement for the old/original cord. Any suggestions on why we are not getting power to the 12 volt adapter? Thank you.

asked by: Ted S

Expert Reply:

It seems that you had an older Blue Ox 7-way to 6-way electrical cord, and now your new cord has a different pin-out pattern. On the latest cord the "Electric Brake" line and the "battery charge" lines are swapped. You could test this (when fully hooked up) by hooking up a volt meter like the Performance Tools # PT89ZR multimeter to your 12 auxiliary outlet and finding no voltage, but when you press the brakes in the towing vehicle, voltage will appear at the outlet. The harder you push, the more voltage you will get.

On the back of the grill-mounted 6-way connector you can disconnect and reconnect individual wires. I have attached a document that shows the wiring pin-out for the standard 6-way connector. You will see that the brake controller output is the pin in the 2 o'clock position, and the 12 volt accessory power is in the center pin. You can test this by measuring the voltage at each pin. When you swap these they will match the new cable pin-out.

expert reply by: Les D